Victims’ loved ones in recent High Point shootings speak out

HIGH POINT, N.C. -- At least one person is still in serious condition after seven people were shot in High Point early Wednesday morning. The shooting happened outside a home on East Green Drive and Winslow Street, where a group of people had gathered following a memorial service.

"I was just here showing my respects and people came through acting foolish," said Diante Miller, who was shot twice in the leg.

High Point police responded to the shooting around 12:40 a.m. Several people had gathered Tuesday night to hold a memorial in remembrance of Alphonso Macer Jr.

The father of six died after he was shot on Wesley Drive in High Point on July 24. Family members say they moved the gathering to his home on East Green Drive to put the kids to bed.

Police won't say how the two shootings are connected and loved ones of the victims are trying to make sense of what happened.

Miller told FOX8 a handful of the seven shooting victims were released from the hospital on Wednesday.

He and Macer's family members described what happened during the shooting.

"People just started flying and dropping when it happened last night," said Trina, Macer's fiancee. She didn't want to give us her last name.

Miller is out of the hospital, but he won't be on his feet for a while.

"I just happened to be one of the unlucky ones, or lucky ones, however you want to put it," he said.

Miller had just seen Macer on Saturday, two days before he died.

"He was lecturing me about him watching me grow up as a kid," Miller said. "And now look. He gone, I'm shot. In three days."

The shooting happened while some of Macer's kids slept inside their home -- just feet away from where bullets hit the house.

"Kids could have got hit last night," Trina said. "They was in the front bedroom laying down asleep."

Miller is struggling to come to terms with what this violence means for his own children and his community.

"I think it's going to keep happening, me personally," he said. "It's just going to continue to go on and on and on."

But Macer's family says they want the community to join together to put a stop to it.

"Everybody needs to talk," Trina said. "All these killings that's going unsolved is because don't nobody in the streets want to talk."

Monday's killing marks the 13th homicide in High Point this year and one of dozens of shootings. The community wants to see police step in to prevent more violence from happening.

"Be more active in the situation, and not say just, it's another black guy shot and killed, and we're going to close this case," Trina said.

But they know it's their responsibility too and they're calling on each other to speak up.

"It's not only on the police it's on everybody," said Nyrobi Good, Macer's brother. "It's on me, it's on everybody. It's on the community."

Macer's family is convinced that someone knows something about what led to Monday's killing and Wednesday's shooting that can help police find justice for the family.

"Everybody wants to be here when everything goes down, but they don't want to open their mouth and say who did it," Trina said. "And it happened in broad daylight. He's not the only one. It's other murders out here that happened."

A group in High Point, made up of NAACP members and other community advocates, has held monthly meetings to brainstorm ways to stop the violence in the community.

Their next meeting is Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Carl Chavis YMCA in High Point.